ADSOE team implements Visual Thinking Strategies at Miami Edison

In conjunction with Miami-Dade County Schools, three members of Barry’s Adrian Dominican School of Education have collaboratively adapted Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) (Housen & Yenawine, 2000) curriculum and instructional methods for implementation at Miami Edison Senior High School in the 2012-2013 school year.

Professors Jill Farrell, Ed.D, Carter Winkle, Ph.D., and doctoral student Mr. Mark Rosenkrantz were the members of the ADSOE team that helped deploy the strategies which will continue at Miami Edison Senior High for the 2013-2014 school year.

Known commonly by its acronym, VTS, Visual Thinking Strategies is an established arts- and research-based pedagogical practice. The strategy utilizes art images as the basis for classroom discussions which are grounded in evidentiary reasoning and lead to the development of oral and written language, literacy, and critical thinking.

The ADSOE team members utilized a year-long series of professional development workshops and training sessions with a community of learners consisting of Social Studies, Art, and ESOL educators. The group learned and developed their expertise in VTS and began to implement it in their classrooms.

The pedagogical strategy’s foci align well to the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) currently being implemented in many U.S. K-12 contexts, bringing new relevancy to the well-established learning activity.

As a result of their effort, two research projects emerged from this work which were accepted and presented at the American Educational Research Association’s 2013 conference.